Vertically integrated 3-axis MEMS angular accelerometer with integrated electronics
Sensors for measuring angular acceleration about three mutually orthogonal axes, X, Y, Z or about the combination of these axes are disclosed. The sensor comprises a sensor subassembly. The sensor subassembly further comprises a base which is substantially parallel to the X-Y sensing plane; a proof mass disposed in the X-Y sensing plane and constrained to rotate substantially about the X, and/or Y, and/or Z, by at least one linkage and is responsive to angular accelerations about the X, and/or Y, and/or Z directions. Finally, the sensor includes at least one electrode at the base plate or perpendicular to the base plate and at least one transducer for each sensing direction of the sensor subassembly responsive to the angular acceleration. Multi-axis detection is enabled by adjusting a configuration of flexures and electrodes.
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The present invention relates generally to accelerometers and more specifically to multi axis accelerometers that sense angular (rotational) accelerations.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONAngular or rotational accelerometers are used to measure rotational acceleration about a specific axis. Rotational accelerometers have many applications such as vehicle rollover event prevention, rotational vibration suppression for hard disk drives, airbag deployment and so on. With the advances in MEMS technology various rotational accelerometers that can be fabricated using silicon micromachining techniques have been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,251,484, “Rotational accelerometer,” Oct. 12, 1993; U.S. Pat. No. 6,718,826, “Balanced angular accelerometer,” Apr. 13, 2004; U.S. Pat. No. 5,872,313, Temperature-compensated surface micromachined angular rate sensor,” Feb. 16, 1999; U.S. Pat. No. 6,257,062, “Angular accelerometer,” Jul. 10, 2001. In these applications surface micromachining used to fabricate the moving proof masses. Surface micromachining imposes limits on the structures. For example, the proof mass thickness is limited to the thickness of the deposited films. Surface micromachining also suffers for the stiction problem as a result of sacrificial etching and wet release processes. Therefore proof masses fabricated using this method requires additional supports around the perimeter of the proof mass to reduce stiction and to increase the stability. This results in relatively more complicated devices and stringent requirements for the fabrication of additional springs that would not disturb the operation of the rotational accelerometer. On the other hand bulk micromachining overcomes most of the problems associated with the surface micromachining. U.S. Pat. No. 7,077,007, “Deep reactive ion etching process and microelectromechanical devices formed thereby,” Jul. 18, 1006 describes DRIE etching for bulk micromachined angular accelerometers.
The sensing methods used in MEMS accelerometer vary. Capacitive sensors provide high performance as well as low cost. Because of these features it became the method of choice for most of the consumer market applications. But to be able to obtain high sensitivity and low noise floor the parasitic capacitances need to be reduced or eliminated. This can be achieved by integrating MEMS and electronics. The accelerometers described in the above-identified patents are not integrated with the detection electronics. In a typical system, the detection electronics needs to be connected to the MEMS substrate through wire bonding. Accordingly, this system suffers from increased parasitics and is susceptible to noise and coupling of unwanted signals.
Therefore, there is a need for rotational accelerometers that are fabricated using bulk micromachining methods and integrated with electronics. There is also need for multi-axis accelerometers that are insensitive to linear accelerations. The present invention addresses such needs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONSensors for measuring angular acceleration about three mutually orthogonal axes, X, Y, Z or about the combination of these axes are disclosed. The angular accelerometers are fabricated by bulk micromachining and integrated with electronics. The sensor comprises a sensor subassembly. The sensor subassembly further comprises a base which is substantially parallel to the X-Y sensing plane; a proof mass disposed in the X-Y sensing plane and constrained to move substantially about the X, and/or Y, and/or Z, by at least one linkage and is responsive to angular accelerations about the X, and/or Y, and/or Z directions. Finally, the sensor includes at least one electrode at the base plate or perpendicular to the base plate and at least one transducer for each sensing direction of the sensor subassembly responsive to the angular acceleration. Multi-axis detection is enabled by adjusting a configuration of flexures and electrodes.
Two structures or more can be used per axis to enable full bridge measurements to further reduce the susceptibility to power supply changes, cross axis coupling and the complexity of the sense electronics.
The present invention relates generally to motion sensing devices and more specifically to angular accelerometers utilized in integrated circuits. The following description is presented to enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention and is provided in the context of a patent application and its requirements. Various modifications to the preferred embodiments and the generic principles and features described herein will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown, but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and features described herein.
A method and system in accordance with the present invention relates to the accelerometers that are fabricated using silicon micromachining methods that have been described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,104,129, entitled “Vertically Integrated MEMS Structure with Electronics in a Hermetically Sealed Cavity,”, issued Sep. 12, 2006, and assigned to the assignee of the present application; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,247,246, entitled “Vertical Integration of a MEMS Structure with Electronics in a Hermetically Sealed Cavity,” issued Jul. 24, 2007, and assigned to the assignee of the present application, both of which are incorporated by reference in their entirety herein. The assembly approach (Nasiri fabrication process) described in the said patents provides a cost effective means to simultaneously protect the movable sensing element and to integrate the low noise electronics. The electronic circuitry is fabricated on a dedicated electronics silicon substrate. The MEMS assembly then bonded on the electronic or sense substrate using a metal bonding technique using a low temperature process that does not damage or compromise the electronic circuitry. A plurality of transducers is assembled in this manner at the wafer level where hundreds to thousands are produced simultaneously. A small size form factor is achieved by the vertical integration of the sensing element with its sensing circuit. Other patents that are relevant for accelerometer fabrication are: U.S. Pat. No. 6,939,473 “Method of making an X-Y axis dual-mass tuning fork gyroscope with vertically integrated electronics and wafer-scale hermetic packaging”; U.S. Pat. No. 7,258,011 “Multiple axis accelerometer”; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,250,353 “Method and system of releasing a MEMS structure” assigned to the assignee of the present application.
The electrical connection 112 can be made under the anchor 106 as described in published U.S. Published Application No. 2006/0208326, entitled “Method of fabrication of al/ge bonding in a wafer packaging environment and a product produced therefrom” which is also assigned to the assignee of the present application. The method described in that published patent application allows making mechanical and electrical connections on the same anchor. The single anchoring of the proof mass 102 reduces the stresses that may be induced by the package warpage. The sense electrodes 114a and 114b are coupled to sensor substrate 118 and do not move with respect to proof mass. When the proof mass 102 is subjected to an angular acceleration about the axis (Z-axis) perpendicular to the plane, the forces acting on the proof mass 102 rotates it about the anchor 106. The rotation of the proof mass 102 is sensed capacitively. The moving electrodes 116 extending from the proof mass 102 form capacitors with the sense electrodes 114.
The sense electrodes 114a-114b are bonded to the cover plate 104 and electrically connected to the sense substrate 118. There are two sense electrodes 114a-114b per each moving electrode 116 on the proof mass 102 forming two capacitors. The value of one of these capacitors increases, whereas the value of other one decreases as the proof mass 102 rotates. The capacitors are labeled CCW 120 and CCCW 122 as shown in
CCW 120 increases if the proof mass 102 rotates in clock wise direction and CCCW 122 increases if the proof mass 102 rotates in the counter-clockwise direction about the axis perpendicular to the sense substrate. CCW 120 and CCCW 122 allow for the differential detection of the proof mass 102 rotation and hence provide an indication of the angular acceleration.
Referring to
As before mentioned,
The fabrication process starts with the manufacturing of the cover plate 104. First alignment marks are patterned on top of the cap or cover wafer. These marks will be later used to align the cover wafer to the sense substrate. Then the cover plate 104 is oxidized preferably using thermal oxidation to form an oxide layer. The preferable thickness of the oxide is between 0.5 and 1 micron. The oxide is patterned using lithographic methods to define the cavities in the cover plate 104.
The cavity depth can be further increased by etching the exposed silicon surfaces in the cover plate 104. But, if the structures in the actuator layer are not supposed to move more than the oxide thickness in vertical direction or there are no difficulties associated with having a cover in the close proximity of the moving parts, the silicon etch step may be skipped.
Then, the cover plate 104 is cleaned and bonded to another low total thickness variation wafer. The second wafer will form an actuator layer after thinning it down to preferably 40 microns. The actuator layer includes the proof mass 102 the sense electrodes 114a and 114b and the flexure springs 108 any other structures such as self test electrodes and over travel stoppers. The next step in the process is the formation of the stand offs. An etch, such as an KOH etch, is suitable for this step. The height of the stand offs determine the vertical separation between actuator layer and the sense substrate 118. If there are electrodes on the sense substrate 118, this gap also determines the sensing capacitor gaps. Then, a germanium (Ge) layer is deposited and patterned. In the next step, elements of the rotational accelerometer are defined lithographically and etched using DRIE in the actuator layer. In the final step, the actuator layer is bonded a sense substrate using eutectic bonding.
Accordingly, as is seen in
The connections to the proof masses 102 and sense electrodes 114a and 114b can be routed in the lower CMOS metals 129, 131 and 133 where metals can cross over each other in different layers. This allows for complicated routing schemes to be utilized for connecting the MEMS device to the active electronics. Another advantage of having the sense substrate 118 in the close proximity of the angular accelerometer is that the connections between the MEMS device and sense electronics can be made very short. This reduces the parasitic coupling to ground, cross coupling between the wires and EMI coupling.
The above-described fabrication process produces hermetically sealed sensors for example utilizing sealing rings 135. The sense substrate 118 is preferably attached to the actuator layer via a metal-to-metal bond, which can be made hermetic. Likewise, the actuator layer is preferably attached to cover plate 104 by a fusion bond, which can also be made hermetic. As a result, the entire assembly of sense substrate 118, actuator layer and cover plate 104 can provide a hermetic barrier between angular accelerometer elements and an ambient environment. The pressure in the cavity can be adjusted during the eutectic bonding process. This allows the quality factor of the angular accelerometer to be controlled for better noise performance and dynamic response.
The above-described fabrication process also allows combining various inertial measurement devices on the same substrate. The angular accelerometers described in this patent can be easily integrated with linear accelerometers as well as low cost gyroscopes.
One can use two of the structures shown in
An example of circuitry for detecting the capacitance change due to rotational acceleration is shown in
In this embodiment, a full bridge circuit is described but one of ordinary skill in the art readily recognizes other means of capacitive detection such as pseudo bridge, half bridge can also be employed. Alternatively, one can also drive the sense electrodes and monitor the proof mass motion and by observing the output voltages of the op-amp.
In an alternative configuration to obtain full bridge configuration, instead of using the full circular proof mass of
In another configuration as shown in
In
Alternatively, one can use the structure shown in
Although the present invention has been described in accordance with the embodiments shown, one of ordinary skill in the art will readily recognize that there could be variations to the embodiments and those variations would be within the spirit and scope of the present invention. Accordingly, many modifications may be made by one of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
Claims
1. A rotational accelerometer comprising:
- a cover substrate,
- a sense substrate; and
- an actuator layer; the actuator layer comprising at least two proof masses constrained to rotate about at least one axis, the at least two proof masses being anchored to the cover and to the sense substrate via at least one flexure, and a plurality of electrodes that can sense rotation about the at least one axis, capacitively, wherein at least one of the two proof masses is constrained to rotate about substantially a Z-direction to measure rotational acceleration about the Z-direction, and is constrained to rotate about substantially a X-direction to measure rotational acceleration about the X-direction and the other of the two proof masses is constrained to rotate about substantially Z-direction to measure rotational acceleration about the Z-direction, and is constrained to rotate about substantially a Y-direction to measure rotational acceleration about the Y-direction.
2. The accelerometer of claim 1 wherein the cover substrate and the sense substrate provide for a hermetically sealed controlled enclosure for the accelerometer.
3. The accelerometer of claim 1 wherein the at least one proof mass is constrained to rotate substantially about a Z-direction to measure rotational acceleration about the Z-direction, and is constrained to rotate about substantially for X-direction to measure rotational acceleration about the X-direction.
4. The accelerometer of claim 1 wherein the at least one proof mass is constrained to rotate substantially about a Z-direction to measure rotational acceleration about the Z-direction, and is constrained to rotate about substantially a Y-direction to measure rotational acceleration about the Y-direction.
5. The accelerometer of claim 1 wherein the plurality of electrodes form a parallel plate capacitance.
6. The accelerometer of claim 1 wherein a full bridge configuration is utilized for capacitive measurement of the at least two proof masses.
7. The accelerometer of claim 1, wherein a full bridge configuration is utilized for capacitance measurement of the at least two proof masses constrained to rotate about a Z-direction.
8. The accelerometer of claim 1, wherein a full bridge configuration is utilized for capacitance measurement of the at least two proof masses constrained to rotate about a Y-direction.
9. The accelerometer of claim 1, wherein a full bridge configuration is utilized for capacitance measurement of the at least two proof masses constrained to rotate about a X-direction.
10. The accelerometer of claim 1 which includes a self-test electrode to actuate the at least one proof mass for test purposes.
11. The accelerometer of claim 1 which includes travel stoppers in at least one of an X or a Y or Z direction.
12. The accelerometer of claim 1 wherein the at least one proof mass is connected electrically to the sense substrate at an anchor.
13. The accelerometer of claim 1 wherein the at least one proof mass is connected electrically to the sense substrate through the at least one flexure.
14. The accelerometer of claim 1 wherein the sense substrate comprises a single crystal silicon wafer.
15. The accelerometer of claim 1 wherein the sense substrate comprises a CMOS integrated circuit.
16. The accelerometer of claim 15 wherein a measurement is provided utilizing a half bridge configuration with a capacitance being in series with a constant capacitance.
17. The accelerometer of claim 15 wherein a measurement is provided utilizing a full bridge configuration with a capacitance being with three other capacitances.
18. The accelerometer of claim 16 wherein a capacitance measurement for the half bridge configuration is proof mass driven.
19. The accelerometer of claim 16 wherein a capacitance measurement for the half bridge configuration is electrode driven.
20. The accelerometer of claim 17 wherein a capacitance measurement for the full bridge configuration is proof mass driven.
21. The accelerometer of claim 17 wherein a capacitance measurement for the full bridge configuration is electrode driven.
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Type: Grant
Filed: Dec 10, 2007
Date of Patent: May 3, 2011
Patent Publication Number: 20090145225
Assignee: Invensense, Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA)
Inventors: Steven S. Nasiri (Saratoga, CA), Goksen G. Yaralioglu (Mountain View, CA), Joseph Seeger (Menlo Park, CA), Babak Taheri (San Francisco, CA)
Primary Examiner: Helen C. Kwok
Attorney: Sawyer Law Group, P.C.
Application Number: 11/953,762
International Classification: G01P 15/08 (20060101); G01P 15/125 (20060101);